COMMISSION FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS OF USA SENATE AGAIN DEFERRED CONSIDERATION OF
ISSUE OF RICHARD HOAGLAND’S APPROVAL TO POSITION OF USA AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA
Yerevan, August 2. ArmInfo. The Commission for Foreign Relations of the
USA Senate again deferred consideration of issue of Richard Hoagland’s
approval to the position of USA Ambassador to Armenia, “Svoboda”
radio station informs. The candidacy of Hoagland was presented in
May, 2006, by the USA President. According to the source, proposal
of at least one senator was necessary to put off the discussion. The
senators-democrats Josef Biden and John Kerri came out with such a
decision, having expressed their anxiety to the Commission Chairman
Richard Lugar. Biden had stated that a group of senators addressed
him with a call to make this proposal.
The press-secretary of the USA Hay Dat Commission, Elizabeth Chuljyan,
noted that the deferment of discussions means that the senators have
some anxiety regarding the Ambassador John Evan’s resignation, the
USA position in the issue of the Armenian Genocide and Hoagland’s
statements about the Armenian Genocide.

MEMBER OF RULING PARTY BOARD: ARMENIA MAY REFUSE FROM COMPLEMENTARY
FOREIGN POLICY
Yerevan, August 2. ArmInfo. “If the OSCE Minsk Group does not change
its approaches to the Karabakh problem solution, I think, Armenia
may refuse from complementary policy”, Artak Grigoryan, the member
of the Board of the Republican Party of Armenia, said at today’s
press-conference.
He emphasized that the complementary policy of Armenia had proved
itself until now, i.e. we succeeded to avoid political shocks
in the country, a stable economic growth is fixed. A. Grigoryan
introduced the content of the Federal seminar, held in Moscow , to the
journalists. The expert from Serbia Sonya Licht stated that recognition
of Kosovo sovereignty is to be expected by February, 2007, as there
are no mechanisms of Kosovo return under jurisdiction of Belgrade. To
Grigoryan’s remark that the model of Kosovo conflict is similar to the
Karabakh conflict, the British Council representative, Charles Grant
said that he is not acquainted with the Karabakh conflict history. The
western politicians tried to convince their Armenian colleague that
the Kosovo conflict is special and cannot be projected on the Karabakh
conflict. “I am sure they are perfectly acquainted with the Karabakh
conflict history, however, the policy of double standards takes more
and more open forms “, A. Grigoryan said.

ARMENIAN AND AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENTS MUST TAKE DECISION ON REFERENDUM, SAYS MATTHEW BRYZA
Baku, August 2. ArmInfo-TURAN. At present neither Armenia, nor
Azerbaijan have agreed to any proposals of the OSCE MG co-chairmen.
Part of the co-chairmen’s proposals are still under discussion,
Matthew Bryza, U.S. co-chairman of the OSCE MG, said in an interview
to Yeni Musavat daily, while commenting on the reaction of Baku and
Yerevan to the co- chairmen’s proposals on the conflict settlement.
With regard to the referendum on the Karabakh status, Bryza said
that this idea was proposed by his predecessors, not by him. “The
question on a referendum must be first agreed on by the presidents,”
said Bryza. Results of the referendum will depend on its format and
on the voting of the people living in Nagorno Karabakh. Bryza did not
rule out the possibility of counting the votes of people that lived
in Karabakh until 1988.
Commenting on a statement about the participation of only Nagorno
Karabakh’s population in voting, Bryza said that this is not
his personal position. “These are proposals put forward by the
co-chairmen. I simply reiterate them. We did not insist on adoption
or non-adoption of these proposals. We simply put forward proposals
for your discretion,” said Bryza.
He also stressed that the latest proposals are the best ones that have
been discussed during the past two years. He urged the parties of the
conflict to express a concrete opinion on adoption, non-adoption or
change of proposals.

158.491 BLN AMD TAX REVENUES IN ARMENIA IN JAN-JUNE 2006
Yerevan, August 2. ArmInfo. In Jan-June 2006 Armenia’s tax revenues
totalled 158.491 bln AMD or 19.6% of GDP – which is 20.5% more than
a year before, reports the National Statistical Service of Armenia.
The profit tax revenues grew by 41.5% to 32.660 bln AMD (4% of GDP),
the income tax revenues by 37.7% to 15.419 bln AMD, the VAT revenues
by 13.5% to 69.505 bln AMD, the customs revenues by 11.8% to 8.173
bln AMD.

UPON RESULTS OF FIRST HALF YEAR, 2006, MORE THAN 122,5 FOREIGN TOURISTS VISITED ARMENIA
Yerevan, August 2. ArmInfo. The total number of foreign tourists,
having visited Armenia, reached 122.528 people for January-June,
2006, which exceeds the indicator of the same period, 2005, by 11,6%.
As ArmInfo was told in the National Statistical Service of Armenia,
119.451 Armenian tourists had left the country for the first half,
2006, which is higher than the similar period, 2005, by 13,3%.

KHACHATURIAN: Gayne Ballet Suite – London Symphony Orchestra/ Anatole
Fistoulari – Everest 35mm mag film recording reissued as Classic Records
Audiophile Audition
Aug 3 2006
KHACHATURIAN: Gayne Ballet Suite – London Symphony Orchestra/ Anatole
Fistoulari – Everest 35mm mag film recording reissued as Classic
Records 3-channel HDAD2016 (CD/DVD-V audio/DVD-A audio), 46:53 ****:
For my previous specifics about this Classic Records series, see my
first review Here. The patriotic folk ballet Gayne comes from the
composer most associated with Armenian music over any other. Although
Khachaturian used elements from the folk music of his people, he
dressed them in very modern harmonies, giving them a 20th-century
life that resulted in immediate popularity. For example, take the
opening one of these 11 tracks which conductor Fistoulari picked out
of the two concert suites the composer had created from his complete
ballet score. It’s the classical hit The Sabre Dance. Fistoulari
was born in Kiev, conducted Russian operas in Paris with Chaliapin,
and later was conductor of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
The rest of the movements are: Lyrical Duet, Dance of the Rose
Maidens, Gopak, Lullaby, Lezghinka, Russian Dance, Gayne’s Adagio,
Dance of the Young Kurds, Dance of the Old Man, Fire. The Adagio may
be remembered from Kubrick’s effective use of it on the soundtrack
of 2001: A Space Odyssey. All the pieces are aglow with orchestral
color and vitality, making perfect audio demos. As with the others
already reviewed, I found the provided CD just about identical to
the now-out-of-print l995 Everest CD reissue, and the addition of the
center channel on both the Dolby 3-channel and the DVD-Audio 3-channel
of the separate DVD to greatly enhance the realism and impact of
the music. I find a similarity in enhancement going from 2-channel
to recorded-for-3-channel to that of going from an LP mastered from
analog tape to a direct disc recorded at the same time.
– John Sunier
D=1750

SEN. NORM COLEMAN, R-MINN., SAYS HE WILL VOTE AGAINST ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR NOMINEE
FOX News
Aug 2 2006
WASHINGTON – A Republican senator is planning to vote against President
Bush’s nominee for ambassador to Armenia because the nominee has
refused to refer to the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide.
“I continue to be troubled by our policy that refuses to recognize
what was a historical reality,” Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman said in
a telephone interview Wednesday.
The Bush administration does not question that Turkish troops killed
or drove from their homes 1.5 million Armenians starting in 1915. But
it has omitted the word “genocide” to describe it.
~U CountryWatch: Armenia
Turkey strongly objects to the use of the term, and U.S. policymakers
are wary of antagonizing an important strategic NATO ally.
On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Coleman
serves, postponed a vote on Richard E. Hoagland’s nomination until
next month.
“As someone of the Jewish faith, I bring a heightened sensitivity
to the reality of genocide and mass murder, and the importance of
recognizing it for what it is,” Coleman said.
“I was brought up believing you never forget the Holocaust, never
forget what happened. And I could not imagine how our ambassador
to Israel could have any effectiveness if he couldn’t recognize the
Holocaust.” (AP)

SENATOR SAYS HE’LL VOTE AGAINST ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR NOMINEE FREDERIC J. FROMMER
Contra Costa Times, San Francisco
Aug 2 2006
WASHINGTON – A Republican senator is planning to vote against President
Bush’s nominee for ambassador to Armenia because the nominee has
refused to refer to the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide.
“I continue to be troubled by our policy that refuses to recognize
what was a historical reality,” Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman said in
a telephone interview Wednesday.
The Bush administration does not question that Turkish troops killed
or drove from their homes 1.5 million Armenians starting in 1915. But
it has omitted the word “genocide” to describe it.
Turkey strongly objects to the use of the term, and U.S. policymakers
are wary of antagonizing an important strategic NATO ally.
On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Coleman
serves, postponed a vote on Richard E. Hoagland’s nomination until
next month. While other senators have raised concerns about Hoagland’s
nomination, Coleman is the first to say publicly that he will vote
against it, according to the Armenian National Committee of America.
California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who sits on the committee,
agreed with postponing the vote but hasn’t said how she plans to vote.
“The administration has to change its policy on Armenia.
Unfortunately, Mr. Hoagland is caught in the middle of this sorry
situation, and I will say more about this entire matter when the
committee votes on this nomination,” she said Wednesday in a statement.
In May, the White House announced the recall of the current ambassador
to Armenia, John Evans, two years into the normal three-year diplomatic
term. Last year, Evans told Armenian-Americans, “The Armenian genocide
was the first genocide of the 20th century.”
Sixty members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice protesting that Evans was being
punished for his reference to “genocide.” In a separate letter,
Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts
demanded an explanation from Rice for Evans’ recall.
“It absolutely was cut short because of that,” Coleman said,
referring to Evans’ use of the word genocide. “That I also found to
be troubling. Evans was a good ambassador.
“As someone of the Jewish faith, I bring a heightened sensitivity
to the reality of genocide and mass murder, and the importance of
recognizing it for what it is,” Coleman said.
“I was brought up believing you never forget the Holocaust, never
forget what happened. And I could not imagine how our ambassador
to Israel could have any effectiveness if he couldn’t recognize
the Holocaust.”
Asked whether Evans was recalled for using the word genocide, State
Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez would only say, “U.S. ambassadors
serve at the pleasure of the president.”
At a Foreign Relations Committee hearing in June, senators failed to
get Hoagland to use the word genocide.
“I have not received any kind of written instruction about this,”
Hoagland said at that hearing. “I simply have studied the president’s
policy. I’ve studied the background papers on the policy. And my
responsibility is to support the president.” (AP)

Racist Vandalism in Rostov
Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, DC
Aug 2 2006
Vandals smashed windows and painted racist graffiti inside the Museum
of Russian-Armenian Friendship in Rostov, according to an August 2,
2006 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. The museum is
located inside an Armenian church. Vandals wrote “Russia for Russians”
and “Beat the khachi” (a pejorative for Armenians) on the walls and
set a fire to some windows. Police are investigating the incident.

CHRISTIANITY IN PALESTINE: MISREPRESENTATION AND DISPOSSESSION
Electronic Intifada, IL
Aug 2 2006
A view of the Old City of Jerusalem — with both the Haram a-Sharif
and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre visible — from Dominus Flevit
church on the Mount of Olives (Timothy Seidel)
“You are a Christian?” a foreign tourist inquires with marked disbelief
of a Palestinian tour guide in Bethlehem. “When did you convert?”
This response by foreigners, Christian or not, is unfortunately not
uncommon in Palestine. Even in Bethlehem, the origin to which many
trace the very roots of their Christian faith, this disbelief goes
hand-in-hand with tourists’ visits to the Church of the Nativity —
visits that seem to carry with them some image of a time long past
with only archaeological or religious sites remaining with little
consideration for the “living stones” that have continuously borne
witness to this tradition for two millennia.
Many Christians from the Global North have a hard time seeing
and relating to Christianity in the Arab world as living, vibrant
communities of faith with rich spiritual and theological traditions.
This may be partly due to a lack of understanding about the shape
of Christianity in other parts of the world, but may also be partly
due to the often racist and ethnocentric notions of what a Christian
should look like.
Christianity in the Arab world has had a long and lively history,
including in Palestine, where one still finds today communities of
faith that stretch back thousands of years to the very beginnings of
the church, where Arabic is spoken in liturgies and sermons, and where
the church has played an integral role in the development of society,
whether in terms of providing leadership in very difficult times or
in pioneering valuable social services like education.
Today, of the roughly 3.9 million Palestinians living in the Occupied
Territories, less than two percent are Christians. Of the 1.4 million
Palestinians living inside Israel, meanwhile, roughly eight percent
belong to Christian communities. Though small, these communities bear
witness to two millennia of continuous Christian presence in the land
called “holy” by much of the rest of the world.
Greek Catholic (Melkite) Palm Sunday service in Bethlehem (Christi
Hoover Seidel)
Palestinian Christians belong to several traditional communities of
faith, communities that can be grouped into four broad categories.
The first are the traditions of the Eastern Orthodox churches. These
would include the Greek Orthodox communities, claiming a continuous
presence in the Holy Land since the times of the apostles. The second
group is made of up what is sometimes referred to as the “Oriental”
Orthodox churches, such as the Syrian, Coptic, and Armenian Orthodox
communities. A third category consists of those churches belonging
to the Catholic family of churches. In addition to Roman Catholic
communities, referred to in the Middle East as the “Latin” church,
one finds “Eastern Catholic” or “Eastern Rite Catholic” churches.
These churches, though in communion with Rome and recognizing the
authority of the pope, have maintained their own distinctive liturgy
and traditions. Members of such communities as Greek Catholic or Syrian
Catholic outnumber the number of “Latin” Catholics in Palestine and
have a long history of involvement in the Palestinian struggle for
justice. Finally, there are various Protestant communities, including
not only Anglican and Lutheran churches, present since the nineteenth
century, but also independent evangelical churches, including Baptist,
Pentecostal, and more.
Today in Palestine, Christianity is experiencing what many would
consider a crisis. This is not due to the growth of so-called
Islamic fundamentalism or the persecution of “believers” by their
Muslim neighbors, misrepresentations that are unfortunately used
to distract from the realities of occupation. Instead, the plight
of the Palestinian Christian is very much connected to that of the
Palestinian Muslim in that both, whether in the Occupied Territories
or inside Israeli itself, are experiencing daily injustices at the
hands of oppressive and discriminatory policies imposed on them by
the Israeli government.
Palestinian Christians, like their Muslim brothers and sisters, have
experienced a long history of dispossession and have not been immune
to Israeli policies of occupation and discrimination. If anything,
they have felt more strongly the feelings of forsakenness, knowing
full well that many Christians in North America and Europe support
without question the state of Israel in its oppression of their
people. Daily experiences of humiliation at checkpoints, of land
confiscation to make way for the separation barrier, the illegal
occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory, lack of mobility
and access to basic services, unemployment, poverty, and no sense of
hope for a better future for their children have all contributed to
this growing emigration of Palestinian Christians from the historical
land of Palestine.
Like their Muslim neighbors, who are prevented by checkpoints and
roadblocks from making pilgrimage to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem,
Christians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are denied basic
religious freedoms, routinely prohibited from traveling very short
distances to worship in one of the most holy sites in Christianity —
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem, where
the church commemorates Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection
from the dead.
A famous ancient mosaic in the Church of the Loaves and Fishes on
the sea of Galilee (taken by Christi Hoover Seidel)
For the Palestinian Christians of Bethlehem, for example, traveling the
six-mile (ten-kilometer) distance to Jerusalem’s Old City is impossible
without special permission. Roughly half of Bethlehem’s residents are
Christian. Church leaders estimate that over 2,000 Christians have
emigrated from the Bethlehem area since September 2000, representing
a decline of more than nine percent of Bethlehem’s total Christian
population. [1]
Rev. Alex Awad, Palestinian pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist
Church, reminds us that “Palestinian Christians have existed in
the Holy Land since the day of Pentecost and have kept the torch of
Christianity burning faithfully for the past two thousand years.” The
erosion of Christianity in her birthplace, he poignantly observes
“is a loss for the body of Christ everywhere. Can we imagine the Holy
Land devoid of the Christian presence and a church which has been a
faithful witness for Christ since the day the church was born?” [2]
Unfortunately, various reportings of this phenomenon has revealed
stereotypes in North America and Europe that continue to see the
root socio-economic problem for Palestinian Christians as their
Muslim neighbors. It is disconcerting that the portrayal of the
Christian absence in Palestine, for example, is often played off
as the fault of Muslims and not of the illegal Israeli occupation,
as if Muslims are oppressing Christians and that this is the root
of the problem for Palestinians. It is the occupation that has made
life so difficult that many Christians have moved from Palestine. This
continues to be a serious problem, ignored especially by “Christian”
tour groups who while visiting the “Holy Land” seldom bother to even
come to Bethlehem to see these ancient sites, let alone see these
Christian communities and recognize their existence.
These attempts to frame this conflict in such anti-Muslim ways only
distracts (often intentionally) from the burden of responsibility
that sits squarely on the shoulders of the state of Israel and its
intentional violation of international law and the U.S. for its 100
billion dollar financing of this structure of violence and death.
An example of this is a resolution that is currently being circulated
around the U.S. House of Representatives claiming to be concerned
about the plight of Palestinian Christians and their diminishing
presence in Palestine. Yet this resolution makes no mention of the root
causes of this conflict but instead blames Palestinians themselves
for their own victimhood, grossly misrepresenting this situation and
the Palestinian people.
Only recently, while the world fixes its gaze on the ongoing Israeli
assault on the people of Lebanon — both Muslim and Christian — and
gives little attention to Gaza and the Israeli-caused humanitarian
disaster for the million and a half people living there, the Israeli
military has begun uprooting ancient olive trees in Bethlehem’s
Cremisan area, marking out the path of the separation barrier to be
built through one of the regions most valuable heritage sites.
Israel’s wall in the West Bank is effectively annexing a large
percentage of Bethlehem’s agricultural land (Timonthy Seidel)
The Cremisan area is of significant heritage value, home to the only
winery in Palestine and two monasteries. Some of the finest examples
of the regions ancient terraced landscape can be found here. The wall
will carve through these terraces destroying agricultural landscapes
that have survived for centuries. When the wall is completed, Beit
Jala district of the Bethlehem area will have lost access to two-thirds
of its land.
It is not the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible
for the expropriation of more land for the construction of this
430-mile/700-kilometer separation barrier. It is not the Palestinian
Muslim population that is responsible for the expansion of illegal
settlements and the creation of a “Greater Jerusalem” depopulated of
its Palestinian citizens. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population
that is responsible for the checkpoints that obstruct mobility, nor the
demolition of homes and other forms of collective punishment. It is not
the Palestinian Muslim population that is responsible for the “one big
prison” status of Gaza. It is not the Palestinian Muslim population
that is responsible for this separation barrier that will become the
de facto border of a “Palestinian State” composed of several isolated
islands of land on roughly 40 to 50 percent of the West Bank. It is
not the Palestinian Muslim population that will be responsible for,
absent a viable, contiguous Palestinians state, the “reservation”
life that will parallel the Native North American experience in the
United States. No, it is the ongoing Israeli structure of occupation
and dispossession that continues to devastate Palestinian livelihood
for both Christian and Muslim alike.
At a time when the U.S. Congress is considering the plight of
Palestinian Christians, they are witnessing the destruction of their
community’s land, heritage and livelihood. The people of Bethlehem
have been very clear in their message to the international community,
“If you want to help us, stop the construction of Israel’s Wall.” [3]
Anyone who lives in this society long enough is aware of tensions that
might exist between Christians and Muslims. Palestinians society like
any other society in the world is dealing with its own problems.
But to focus on this internal tension to the exclusion of other
factors is missing the mark and emptying this issue of its context.
It is indeed hard to be Palestinian Christian these days. But it is
also hard being a Palestinian Muslim. The fact of the matter is that
it is hard simply being a Palestinian.
Timothy Seidel is a peace development worker with Mennonite Central
Committee in the Occupied Palestinian Territories where he has lived
for the past two years.
Footnotes [1] For more on these conditions in Bethlehem, see the
report from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) and the Office of the Special Coordinator for the Peace Process
in the Middle East (UNSCO), “Costs of Conflict: The Changing Face of
Bethlehem” (December 2004).
[2] See Rev. Awad’s article in “Christian Zionism and Peace in the
Holy Land,” MCC Peace Office Newsletter 35/3 (July-September 2005).
[3] See Open Bethlehem’s report “Bulldozers start work on Wall to
annex Bethlehem’s Cremisan Monastery,” and the Urgent Appeal from
the city of Beit Jala in Bethlehem district.
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